If you will only use that HTPC to play movies then a motherboard with SPDIF is good enough since the sound would be sent straight through to your receiver. No need for any bells and whistles really.

Now if you want to have bit perfect music playback then you will have to watch out since a lot of motherboards/sound cards will resample output PCM at 48Hz and higher instead of the usual 44.1Hz sampling rate, which will degrade the sound quality.

Last edited by skyhawk669; 03/24/06 05:15 PM.